The present invention relates to tubular walls for product containers and, more particularly, to the formation from a single sheet of material of a tubular structure having any one of a plurality of different indicia on its exterior surface.
It is becoming increasingly common to make the tubular walls for collapsible dispensing containers of the type used, for example, to package toothpaste, from laminated sheet material. Most often, the laminated material is supplied to the tube manufacturer as an elongated, continuous web of such material which is convolutely wound into a large roll. The tubes are manufactured from the material by appropriate machinery which unwinds the roll and slices the material, as needed, into appropriately sized portions which are then formed into the desired tubes. Typically, the web of material is preprinted with whatever advertising message and directions it is desired to appear on the tubular wall. The portions cut from the web for each of the tubes is then appropriately chosen to properly place the advertising message and other indicia on the finally formed tubular structure.
Although in general it is easier and much more economical to preprint a web of material as set forth above prior to it being formed into the individual tubular structures, such method is not entirely satisfactory. For one thing, it is not unusual for a manufacturer of a product to want to package the product in containers which are identical except for relatively minor differences in the advertising message or other indicia which is applied to the container. For example, several large dentifrice manufacturers sell both "plain" and "flavor containing" dentifrices under single trademarks. Often this difference in products is reflected on the dentifrice tubes as only a color change and slightly different wording in the advertising messages. Moreover, some manufacturers market dentifrices and the like under several different trademarks, the use of each of which requires different printing on the separate containers.
It will be appreciated that if a tube manufacturer wishes to be in a position to quickly respond to orders from a product manufacturer for containers having different messages, he must maintain in stock separate rolls of the web material having such different messages. Because the web rolls are relatively large, the storage of very many different kinds requires an appreciable amount of space. Thus, the necessity of keeping a plurality of rolls having the different messages respectively printed thereon adds to the expense of a tube manufacturer's operation. It will also be appreciated that the printing of different messages on the separate rolls adds to the expense of manufacturing the laminated web material, especially since the major cost of a printing operation is in the set-up time for each individual printing run and the different printing cylinders which are required for each.